On this Rack
by Kyence
Summary: Track 8 of "A Doomed Childhood Suite." A sequel of sorts to my *very* old songfic Father's Day. Young Lotor confronts his inner demons.


My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult: _I See Good Spirits & I See Bad Spirits_

Theme: Doomite backstories of youth

Genre: Horror

Date of Completion: September 16, 2006

On This Rack

The landscape was an endless waste, stretching out across an infinite, dark horizon. His mother dragged him, nearly pulling his shoulder out of its socket, willing to do so if his legs were not fast enough. Her speed never faltered, her chest neither expanded nor contracted, her skin did not glisten with sweat. So was the advantage of the dead. Lotor, very much alive, was panting, his lungs screaming for relief despite his sublime physical shape. The only vestige his mother had that reminded him of her mortal human days was her look of desperation to escape.

"You are one of us, your fate is with us!" Lotor turned his head to the voices, the pair of undead people he had never laid eyes upon, yet he knew all too familiarly. Their collective speed was less, but their arms were outstretched, and they shared the unlimited endurance his mother now bore. Were it not for her, he would have succumbed miles ago. Indeed, he was always the only thing holding her back from freedom.

The ground beneath them all became a sharp incline, an impossible hill. He gripped his mother's hand tighter, floating up as light as a feather. At the plateau, his feet gently settled onto the ground, but not for a trifle before his mother continued with him in tow. He chanced another look behind him, and saw the malicious pair was even closer.

"At last, go to him!" his mother pleaded, as she wrung him around her body and flung him right into the arms of his father. Before his father could enclose him, Lotor wrenched back from the embrace.

"How could you, mother! After all he has done to you? To me?" His voice was accusatory, merely hinting at the deep betrayal that suffocated his soul. He ran towards her, his platinum blond hair flitting about, snapping like whips on his face, but his father was already in front of him, facing her. A shiver ran down the young man's spine: both voices came out as unrecognizable muffles, yet he knew they were determining his near future.

Suddenly, his hearing cleared as he heard her say, "Please protect him!" His father turned ever so slightly, the dark visage unreadable. His mother seemed relieved. Lotor took a long breath, wondering where their two attackers were. The sword thrust into his mother's womb, impaling her to a granite statue of a deteriorated angel he was certain was not there before. He took two steps back as his father completely turned around, hands covered in red blood that had spilled onto the hilt before he forsook it inside her.

"But I am, whore," Zarkon said over his shoulder as he pounced on his son. Lotor screamed as he was helplessly pinned down to the cold earth, which pushed up as much as he was being pushed down. He looked to his right and saw the dead couple scrutinizing him from a distance. He looked to his left and saw a red mist. He blinked and looked up at his constant oppressor.

A grinning child, covered in bruises, dripping with black blood that corroded whatever it fell upon, brandished an unaffected knife in the air. The blade was sharp, and reflected light from a source much brighter than this realm was privy to. "Can I do it? When shall I do it? Will you tell me when? Where shall I cut him?" The queries were tired, hopeful, exhausted, enthusiastic. The misty trail led to a looming form less than a foot away, a man. He leered closely at the wounded captor, and chuckled with juicy rancor.

"How shall I hurt him? How will I break him?" The boy gently eased the knife's tip into Lotor's throat near his carotid artery for a split second, a tiny stream pooling onto the ground. His assassin looked up at the foul man as he withdrew the blade, awaiting the command, but with such unconditional affection, it confounded yet amazed him, rendering him breathless and insanely jealous.

The man now leaned over, and Lotor saw the entire face in utmost lucidity, the blazing crimson Drule eyes in exquisite detail. The world around them all began to swirl and suck itself into oblivion. The two lingering fellows wailed in cacophonous delight, "You are one of us! Your fate is with us!" The face was HIS face, only older, the colors different, more violet in hue, and devilish, far more evil than any he had ever seen. And he had seen many.

"You see, bastard Lotor? Facsimile? Family will simply be the death of you. As it was for them," he alluded to the morbid choir. "As it was for me." The man gestured to the boy still holding him down. "As you will be to him." The man then slammed a hand so forcefully onto the child's shoulder even Lotor could feel the pain emanating from him despite the lack of response, and in that moment, knew the man's identity, and that he bore the same name. "Or," the macabre Lotor continued, "Maybe I won't let you be. He was mine first."

Utter silence followed for an endless moment. The inevitable was imminent. Order would be restored. The family line would end with him, Lotor was certain of it.

"Kill him."

"Kill me."

With the same gap-filled grin, the battered boy plunged the knife; Lotor woke up coated in cold sweat and hot tears, as he had every night since he procured that abominable letter.

He was relieved that he wasn't sobbing, he would hate to be rumored to be a weakling. He felt around his throat to make certain that there were no lacerations to be concerned about, loathing himself even as he did so. He glanced over at the far side of the room, looking for any signs that his roommate was awake and inwardly gloating at his apparent distress. Things seemed alright enough, but distance can be deceiving, so Lotor stealthily stepped out of his bed and crept noiselessly until he was close enough to see his roommate was not awake. He was satisfied, until he smelled something unsettling. He grimaced as he lifted the blanket that was tucked tightly up to his roommate's chin. Lotor had always hated the fact that the academy demanded even the wealthiest and most powerful children from the most powerful families to room together like paeans. He despised it even more know, for he would now be subject to many questions that he would not be were he granted his own solitary space: his roommate's throat had been stabbed, exactly in the place where his own had been in somnolence.

His long hair was harshly gripped en masse from behind, jerking his head nearly off his neck. His legs lost their balance and he landed on his buttocks. His head was pulled back more fiercely so it looked up. He swallowed bile as his eyes rattled in their sockets. His vision returned soon enough.

"What is going on?" Lotor whispered upward.

"Your dream does not end until I say it does."

Lotor felt the force on his hair release and he rebounded, facing his anteceding, spectral namesake. "Look, I died in it, just like I've always done, since I started dreaming the stupid thing. Can't my mind just lay off for a while?" he chided himself.

"I know your rage. Your rage is my rage, little Lotor. So you want to kill me? Do you want to strike me?"

Lotor snorted. "You think I'm afraid of you now? I'm lucid dreaming, _Lotor_, I'm in control."

"Are you?" the apparition chuckled.

"Watch me," the young prince promised as he ran to his side of the room and removed his laser sword from its dark scabbard. He performed some daring moves with it to showcase his high skill. The other Lotor dramatically yawned to indicate his disinterest before he whipped the boy across the chest.

"Damn you," Lotor cursed as he gripped his torso, "Since when do nightmare ghost monsters have laser whips?"

"I love marring fresh skin, the blood spilled from such orifices had such a distinct ebb and flow to it, the loveliest of streams. Wouldn't you agree? Come on, show me, little heir to the Dhm Empire. Show me your hatred!" his tormentor goaded, his whip dematerializing to places unknown. He spread his arms out, his entire body glowing a bloody red haze.

Lotor growled as he marched with his sword held with both arms, his own eyes overflowing with a vicious yellow glaze.

"You father bequeathed to you his hate, but I bequeathed to you my rage. You have that letter, you want to know, you _need_ to know how it feels to let it consume you, control you, seduce you. Prove to me you are not the weak abomination your father is! Prove to me your strength!"

"Here it is! Now shut up!" Lotor screamed as he slashed the sword in linear fashions, countless repetitions of the same arm movements until he could swing his blade no longer. His vision had been naught but a foggy sanguine ooze from the initiating strike. It became more opaque as the older, better, wiser, original Lotor laughed as the cuts went through his semblance without effect. Soon, the younger, worse, foolish, hapless Lotor heard and saw nothing but red and the racing pulse drumming through his veins.

Exhausted, Lotor dropped to his knees, certain that he was awake now, and even more confident that whatever inner demon he had confronted he had triumphed against. He was the only, better, no, best Lotor there was or would ever be! He knew that now. His vision restored itself slowly, the way a cool breeze parts the lazy heat. He dropped his sword as he took in the mutilated corpse of his roommate. Were it not for the cauterizing affect of the laser, there would be copious amounts of fluid about besides the sundry pieces of separated entrails and muscles. He did note the whip the corpse still gripped in a detached hand. It was not laser-based, so Lotor was the one bleeding from his chest. He wondered if his yelling had roused the fool and fought back after Lotor charged him at some point during his somnambulism. Lotor felt no guilt, and because of his wound, he was certain he has an alibi that would grant him impunity. However, before he called anyone's attention to the matter at hand, he had another to attend to.

He took the letter he had found those many moons ago, when he had trailed his father to that empty, decrepit manor on Opachre that had a pair of skeletons he was certain were his great-grandparents encased in eternal statues. It was simple, some sort of apology from his father to his late unknown grandfather in the form of the name, Lotor. He could never bring himself to show that letter to anyone, let alone his father, and the secret hinted of scandal that lead to his nightly torment. No longer. Lotor carried the letter to his laser sword and held it gingerly above the blade, close enough to ignite it. In seconds, the paper was nothing but carbon ash.

He felt pride, pleasure, self-enlightened, his obsession over the letter, his mother, his father, his family, gone. He was whole now; whether this would last he did not know, nor did he care. He walked out into the hallway with his sword. He inhaled deeply. A wordless scream started tiny in the back of his throat before it metamorphosed into an unstoppable torrent, wresting all in the academy from their slumber, alerting all that Prince Lotor was reborn, and a force to be reckoned with.

**Song Credits:**

**ON THIS RACK**

Written by Buzz McCoy & Groovie Mann

Published by SleazeBox Music / BMI

Vocals - Groovie Mann, Buzz McCoy, Debbie Deathbeat

Keys & Programming – Buzz McCoy


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